Rent Watch: Tenant complains of neighbors' cooking odors

"The fair housing statutes protect tenants' right to live in a rental property without interference or discrimination, regardless of their national origin. In our diverse society, these protections require housing providers to tolerate differences in culture and practices arising from the national backgrounds of their residents."

"Given these protections, your landlord could not curtail the activities of one tenant in response to a general complaint from another tenant concerning aspects of the first tenant's culture. Nor can a landlord isolate or 'steer' tenants of one culture to certain areas of the property to avoid offending other residents from different cultures."

"The only exception might be if the cooking activities constituted a nuisance, meaning that the odors or fumes were so invasive or irritating that they were unreasonably interfering with your ability to use your rental unit. If the activities truly create a nuisance and you are unable to establish some ground rules with your neighbor, you could ask your landlord to intervene."

Fair housing statutes protect tenants' rights to live without interference or discrimination based on national origin. Landlords cannot curtail cultural practices of one tenant in response to complaints from another tenant, nor can they isolate tenants by culture to avoid offending other residents. The only potential exception occurs if cooking activities create a genuine nuisance—meaning odors or fumes are so invasive they unreasonably interfere with another tenant's ability to use their rental unit. Landlords face the challenging task of distinguishing between unpleasant odors and those that genuinely make a unit uninhabitable. If cultural cooking practices create a true nuisance and neighbors cannot establish ground rules, landlords may intervene.

Read at Los Angeles Times